Posts Tagged ‘hockey’

The big, bad Bruins secured a #3 seed in the NHL Eastern Conference quarterfinals, and will face off with the Montreal Canadians in hockey’s biggest rivalry. The physical play between the two teams during the regular season has fans and experts alike wondering what brand of hockey we will see in the first round starting on Thursday.

Typically, playoff hockey is a much faster-paced game, played with more finesse and intensity. The focus of the intensity could shift towards the penalty box, however, which is just what hockey could use.

In Boston, the media attention is fixated on the miserable 2-9 start by the Red Sox this season, their worst in decades. Page two is cluttered with panic over the Celtics staggering into their postseason run. Just the other day on ESPN’s Sportscenter, they used a new graphic called the “Panic Meter” to judge how Boston fans should react to their teams’ dismal records.

Why are people overlooking the Bruins? This could be hockey’s greatest playoff match-up in years. The Bruins and Canadians combined for 14 goals and 154 penalty minutes in a single game in mid-February. Now play that out over a 7-game playoff series.

Bruins goalie, Tim Thomas, just set a season record with a .938 save percentage, averaging 2.00 goals allowed per game. Last year’s run was halted by a wrist injury to David Krejci—and maybe getting beat four games in a row by the Flyers, when they were up 3 games to none.

The Bruins are back, and they’re hungry for the Cup. The puck drops at 7:10pm on Thursday for the first game of the series, and from the get-go, I think this series as potential to appease those fans worshiping the Panic Meter in Beantown.